Roaring success for Pavilion's 75th birthday celebration event

Around 1,500 people packed along the balconies, jostled on the terrace and some lucky few sat comfortably in deckchairs as top London snapper Sheila Burnett was winched five metres into the air on a cherrypicker to take the shot which re-creates a famous 1936 image of the Daily Mirror dance troupe.

Eastbourne-based freerunning team Urban Shadows re-created the circular pattern captured by the Daily Mirror Eight in the original picture, after wowing crowds with a series of backflips, vaults and controlled tumbles on Monday afternoon.

"It's been absolutely overwhelming," said Pavilion director Alan Haydon. "I genuinely think we have broken the record for numbers of people you can get in and around the Pavilion at any one time. It's been unbelievable. It goes to show we do have a lot of support and people do vote on their feet."

After a weekend in which Pavilion staff counted 10,000 visitors to the Tomoko Takahashi retrospective currently on show in the galleries, supporters of the building claim the huge crowds are a reply to criticism the building receives for not connecting enough with the local community.

Photographer Sheila, who marshalled crowds into position, said she was delighted with the results.

"It went well. Earlier on I tried to do a test picture and there was hardly anybody in it, but as soon as everybody gathered, and they did, everyone was in perfect position.

"And the Urban Shadows had circle movement like in the old photograph. It couldn't have been better."

A choir and orchestra of around 120 people lead by choir leader John Langridge and musician Mike Hatchard, assembled that morning, drew a strong round of applause before DJ Nikki Beatnik kept crowds dancing with a series of 75 songs, one taken from each year since the building was opened in 1935.

And local faces including Rother District Council chief executive Derek Stevens and his family, as well as plenty of Bexhill councillors, were on hand to collect free tea and cakes in the sunshine.

Spectator Carolyn Turner, of Mitten Road, said: "I was amazed with the amount of people who turned up at the DLWP. I have never seen so many people on the Prom in the 20 years we have lived here and the DLWP were so lucky with the weather."